Dear Parishioners and Friends,
Both St. John the Baptist and the Blessed Virgin Mary are invoked quietly by the priest at the end of the Offertory, just before the Eucharistic Prayer begins. They’re both given pride of place at this point because they were sanctified before the Incarnation, to prepare the way of the Lord. There’s an application for us–as the Lord comes to us at the Mass, we’re called to prepare his way before the sacramental event. This calls for inward orientation and focus, lest we arrive off-balance and have difficulty being fully present for the high point of our week. But this is hard to achieve when we arrive at church for corporate worship. Yes, do pray as you enter church–but it’s far better to begin at home.
We have a wealth of preparation prayers for Mass (for example, St. Gregory’s Prayer Book, pp. 219-230), but they’re underemphasized. These aren’t just for the unusually devout–they’re a reasonable preparation for everyone. Likewise, the Byzantine Catholic tradition has formalized preparatory prayers that are a common routine before Communion—it’s the ethos is that everyone prays them before they arrive to church. If you want to have your game face on before Mass, then you can take a page out of that book, and I’ve included a pdf here.
A quote from these prayers is particularly helpful for this coming Sunday:
But do thou, O Christ my God, … receive me as I approach and touch thee, like the … woman with the issue of blood; [who] by but touching the hem of thy garment was healed.
The woman was prepared to meet Jesus because she expected something from him. That’s our goal: to expect more at Mass.
In Christ,
Fr. Scharbach
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.’ ” Mark 1:3